Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY 251
attendant winds, their community, etc." This mysterious and
concealed characteristic of the winds is hinted when Ariel disguises
himself, and appears as a harpy. " I and my felloivs," he
says, " are ministers of fate," incapable of injury, " invulnerable."
The winds have " apower of conveying spiritual species, that is,
sounds, radiations, and the like;" these Bacon would have
inquired into. The excited imagination and uneasy conscience
of Alonzo make him nervously impressionable, and able to
recognise these spiritual sounds:
Alon.
Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous
Mcthought the billows spoke and told me of it
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.l
A passage which, in gloomier and more tragic language, is
echoed in Macbeth
Aii & pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. 2
The notes on the tremendous force of the winds are once more
distilled into verse in the Tempest, where, also, the gentler
winds are described " driving on the tides and currents, sometimes
propelling, and sometimes flying from one another, as if in
sport " These winds, weak masters though they be, assist,
Bacon says, in promoting an « agitation " and " collision "
amongst the violent winds, and " drive them along in mad fury."
In other words, the tempest, raised by the attendant and ministering
winds, is combined with an earthquake, over which the
winds have no control, but which the magician has caused by
his art.
1 Tempest, iii- 3.
2 Macbeth i. 7. The last line seems to refer to Bacon's observation that
"showers generally allay the winds, especially if they be stormy.